By Our Reporter
SUPER Eagles defender, Leon Balogun could make his debut in the Europa League as Mainz 05 tackles RSC Anderlecht at the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium in Brussels, reports NaijaSportsXtra.blogspot.com.
The Nigerian who is yet to feature in three Europa matches, says the Zerofivers have already shown how they can do that better against the Belgian side when they defeated FC Ingolstadt 2-0 in the weekend’s Bundesliga match.
“We kept our concentration levels very high for the full 90 minutes, and it wasn’t the first time that we’ve shown we can do it,” the central defender said, who may be in contention for a starting berth after making his comeback from an injury lay-off.
If Balogun does feature, one of his main tasks will be to keep the opposing danger man Lukasz Teodorczyk quiet.
Recall in the game two weeks ago, the Polish forward notched his second Europa League goal to deny the Zerofivers their first home victory at the Opel Arena.
For Martin Schmidt who made his intentions about Teodorczyk, “We have got a plan to deal with him,” he revealed.
“Obviously it’s a very tough job to defend against him, but the goals he gets have got a lot in common and we’ll have to be more alert than we were in the home game, especially in defending against long balls.”
However, Balogun hopes his German side will make it to the next phase of the champions as the Zerofivers have picked 5points after three games.
“We want to stay in Europe into the New Year,” he said.
